Privacy & Information Security Law Blog

On July 6, 2011, the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (the “ICO”) released its Annual Report and Financial Statements for 2010/11.  Characterizing information as “the currency of democracy,” the report highlights the wide range of the ICO’s activities during the last twelve months, which focused on education and the provision of good practice guidance in addition to enforcement activities.

On July 1, 2011, the French Data Protection Authority (the “CNIL”) released a comprehensive handbook for health professionals (the “Guidance”).  The Guidance reiterates that health professionals (e.g., doctors, nurses, hospitals, research laboratories) have an obligation to comply with the French Data Protection Act when collecting and processing health data on patients.

As reported in BNA’s Privacy Law Watch, on July 2, 2011, Peruvian President Alan García signed the Personal Data Protection Law (Ley de Protección de Datos Personales, Ley No. 29733), making Peru the latest Latin American country to adopt EU-style omnibus privacy legislation.  Implementing rules for the new law are to be drafted in the next few months.

On June 27, 2011, the Federal Trade Commission announced that it had reached a settlement with Teletrack, Inc. (“Teletrack”), a consumer reporting agency that sells consumer reports and other services to businesses that serve financially distressed consumers, after alleging that the company had sold information obtained through its consumer reporting business to marketers to create a marketing database. The FTC considered that the information sold by Teletrack, which included lists of consumers who applied for certain credit products, constituted “consumer ...

On June 28-30, 2011, the Council of Europe’s Bureau of the Consultative Committee of the Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to the Automatic Processing of Personal Data (known as the “T-PD-Bureau”) met in Strasbourg, France, to discuss, among other things, amending the Council of Europe’s Convention 108.  Convention 108, which underlies the European Union’s legal framework for data protection, is the only legally-binding international convention that addresses data protection.  Amendment of the Convention is thus closely linked to the current review of the EU data protection framework, and many of the same actors are involved in both exercises.

On June 28, 2011, the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission convened a public education forum entitled “Helping Consumers Harness the Potential of Location-Based Services.”  Representatives of telecommunications carriers, technology companies and consumer advocacy organizations discussed technological developments and how best to realize the benefits of location-based services without compromising privacy.

On June 29, 2011, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation convened a hearing entitled “Privacy and Data Security: Protecting Consumers in the Online World.”  In opening remarks, Committee Chair Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) highlighted that the hearing would consider both privacy and data security and discussed three bills focused on these issues.  

On June 24, 2011, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration released a PowerPoint presentation on Mexico’s new private sector data protection law that was shared at a meeting of the OECD Working Party on Information Security and Privacy by Mexico’s Ministry of Economy and Federal Institute for Access to Information and Data Protection (“IFAI”).  The presentation provides guidance on the creation of privacy notices and establishment of self-regulatory schemes, and also outlines the responsibilities of the Ministry of Economy and the IFAI ...

Recent developments involving the use of facial recognition technology have raised privacy concerns in the United States, Europe and Canada.  As we reported earlier this month, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (“EPIC”) and several other consumer privacy advocacy groups filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission against Facebook for its use of facial recognition technology.  According to EPIC’s complaint, Facebook’s Tag Suggestions feature recognizes individuals’ faces based on photographs already on Facebook, then suggests that users “confirm Facebook’s identification of facial images in user photos” when they upload new photos to their Facebook profiles.

On June 23, 2011, in a 6-3 decision, the United States Supreme Court ruled in IMS Health Inc. v. Sorrell that a Vermont law prohibiting the sale of prescriber-identifiable data to drug companies was an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment right to free speech.  Thomas Julin, a partner at Hunton & Williams LLP, represented IMS Health in this case.  The Supreme Court’s ruling affirmed the holding of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, resolving a split with the First Circuit (which upheld a similar law in New Hampshire), and likely preventing the enactment of similar restrictive laws across the country.